601 Hello Hothouse Flowers - Don't Go

Chart  entered : 14  May  1988

Chart  peak : 11

Number  of  hits : 10

Sappy  Irish  balladeer  Johnny  Logan  doesn't  qualify  for  a  post  on  this  blog  but  he  certainly  gave  this  lot  a  leg  up  as  a  result  of  winning  the  Eurovision  Song  Contest  for  the  second  time  in  1987.

Hothouse  Flowers  were  formed  in  Dublin  in  1985  by  former  school friends  Liam  O' Manolai  and  Fiachna  O'  Braonain  as  a  busking  duo  originally  known  as  The  Incomparable  Benzini  Brothers.  Peter  O'  Toole   ( not  that  one  ) soon  joined  on  bass. They  became  a  more  conventional  band  with  the  addition  of  drummer  Jerry  Fehily  and  saxophonist  Leo  Barnes  though  these  latter  two  were  not  at  first  counted  as  full  members.  Liam  was  the  singer  and  keyboard  player  while  Fiachna  played  guitar  in  the  line  up.

In  1986  the  band  got  on  Irish  television  without  having  a  record  deal  and  came  to  Bono's  attention. He  signed  them  to  U2's   Mother  label. They  released  their  first  single  "Love  Don't  Work  This  Way", produced  by  Flood , in  1987. It's  a  slightly  downbeat  but  energetic  pop  soul  workout  pretty  close  to  Hue  and  Cry  with  a  stronger  vocalist. The  song  has  an  adult  lyric  about  the  draining  of  romance  from  a  relationship; Irish  singer  and  actress  Maria  Doyle  Kennedy  takes  a  verse  to  give  the  female  perspective. It  finishes  very  strangely  on  a  rhythm  guitar  break .It  was  a  big  hit  in  Ireland  reaching  number  7  but.  despite  some  night  time  radio  play,  it  didn't  register  here.

The  band  then  signed  with  London  Records.

"Don't  Go"  was  their  first  single  for  the  new  label  in  November  1987. I  actually  prefer  the  previous  single   as  "Don't  Go"  hangs  on  a  repetitive  piano  riff  that  gets  pretty  boring  by  the  end  of  the  song. The  lyric  is  a  string  of  summery  images  to  underline  the  central  message of  why  leave  when  everything's  rosy ? There's  absolutely  nothing  to  tie  it  to  the  theme  of  child  abandonment  suggested  by  the  emotive  picture  above  ( which  wasn't  the  sleeve  for  the  original  release ). Liam  delivers  it  in  a  tumble  of  words  with  no  regard  to  metre  which  instantly  suggests  Springsteen  to  me  but  I  mentioned  that  at  the  time  to  my  friend  Mark  and  he  - a  huge  Bruce  fan - couldn't  see  it  at  all. The  song  reached  number  2  in  Ireland  but  failed  to  chart  here. A  subsequent  single  "Feet  On  The  Ground  went  to  number  one  in  Ireland   but  again  stiffed  here.

Then  came  Eurovision, 1988 . Logan's  victory  the  previous  year  meant  that  the  Contest  was  staged  in  Dublin  and  Hothouse  Flowers  were  recruited  to  provide  a  musical  interlude  after  all  the  contestants  had  performed  to  give  the  judges  a  chance  to  tot  up  their  scores. They  chose  to  perform  "Don't  Go". As  a  result , the  song  was  a  much  bigger  hit  than  the  UK  entry  ( Scott  Fitzgerald's  "Go"  which  came  mighty  close  to  winning )  and  the   Swiss  winner  ( which  didn't  chart  at  all  but  we'll  certainly  be  meeting  its  performer  a  few  years  on  from  here ). It  remains  their  only  Top  20  hit,  both  here  and  in  the  U.S.